Come Back to Me
by cathTZHGPK7197
Summary: "Because this ego-centric, shallow, movie-referencing Special Agent needs to tell you he loves you" Tag to Berlin (10x21) post-crash. Tony wishes like hell the roles were reversed, that he was lying in the bed across from him. Tiva
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS... because if I did, Tony wouldn't be about to be sleeping in a hospital.

Disoriented and terrified, Tony lay confined to his hospital bed, held down by miles of tubing. The images kept flashing through his head. Reaching for Ziva's hand, seeing the car seconds too late, throwing himself across the car to shield her from the impact, waking up next to her seemingly lifeless body, reaching a bloody hand for her limp one before succumbing to unconsciousness. He didn't know if Ziva David was alive or not and Anthony DiNozzo would never forgive himself if she died. He'd been waiting for hours for a scrap of news, and he'd tried to make numerous breaks for freedom, but his injuries stopped him before the doctors did. He refused to sleep, despite the doctor's orders to get some rest. _That should have been me. I should be the one in surgery. I should have been paying attention. This is my fault. Oh God, Ziva, I'm so sorry. _His thoughts were choppy, as if there was a bad signal transmitting his feelings into words. He put his free hand over his eyes, trying to shield his field of vision from the intensive care unit around him. There was rustling at the foot of his imprisoning bed and Tony looked up. Gibbs was standing at the end of it, his ever-present coffee in one hand, "Aw hell, DiNozzo." Gibbs said softly. Tony just stared at him, his eyes sending a silent plea for information. Gibbs took a breath, "Ziva's out of surgery. She's stable." Tony breathed a sigh of relief. Ziva was _alive_. And right now, stable was good enough for him. "It should have been me. I should have been paying attention; I never saw it-" Gibbs shook his head, cutting him off, "Tony, you saved her life. When you threw yourself across and took the impact, you saved her life. When Ziva wakes up, she'll kick your ass if she finds out you've been blaming yourself." Tony just stared at him, his tongue between his teeth. That the most he'd ever heard Gibbs speak at one time. Gibbs had seemingly exhausted his daily word supply because he fell silent in a chair next to Tony's bed. Tony finally succumbed to sleep, his brain slowing down with the thought that she was alive.

They let Tony out of bed three days later. Battered, bruised and broken, he moved slowly, his ribs and chest screaming in pain with every step he took. He didn't go home, though. He took his turn in the cycle in Ziva's room. She still hadn't woken up and the doctors were worried. When McGee left, Tony took his spot in the chair next to Ziva's bed. He looked at the tiny form in the bed next to him, a shell of the woman he'd spent days in Berlin with. His breath hitched at the sight of the bruising and cuts on her face. "Hey, Zi. It's Tony. I don't know if you can hear me or not, but I'm here. We're working on Bodnar, Zi. They're getting close." He talked to the woman for twenty minutes or so about absolutely nothing, avoiding what he really wanted to say. Tony fell silent, thinking about what to say next. "Ziva, I'm so sorry. I wish like hell our roles were reversed and you had been driving, because then I'd be in that bed and you'd be here, awake, next to me. Or maybe not. Maybe you'd already be off being the bad-ass Mossad ninja I've learned to love, catching all the bad guys and hardly breaking a sweat. But they aren't. So I guess all I can do is hope you can forgive me for this and possibly not kill me when you wake up." Tony hesitated a second before reaching out and taking the battered hand laying at her side. "I guess what I'm trying to say, Zi, is that we need you here. _I_ need you here. Don't leave me just yet, sweet-cheeks. Because if you do, you won't get to yell at me for turning into one entire movie character myself, McGee won't get to finish helping you find Bodnar, Abby will lose her best friend, Gibbs will lose his daughter," Tony's voice was almost inaudible now, "and I… I'll never get to tell you that I need you here. Because you complete me, Ziva. And if you die on me, something in me will die, too. And then you'll be stuck with a piece of movie-referencing, shallow, ego-centric me in heaven. And this shallow, movie-referencing, ego-centric very Special Agent will never get to tell you he loves you. So, hold on, Zi. For all of us." He broke off, his voice barely a whisper. He squeezed her hand and looked at her tattered face, her eyes stubbornly closed. He sighed. Some part of him had hoped that pouring his soul out to her would bring her back to him. But now all he could do was grip her hand like a life line and pray that Ziva David would come back to him, so that he could tell her he loved her for real, even if she went all ninja all over him. Which she probably would.

But Tony wouldn't care.

Because that would mean she came back to him.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for all the positive reviews on Chapter 1! Here's chapter 2!

Disclaimer: Still don't own NCIS. Still upset about the Tiva car crash. Still waiting for Tuesday.

Tony had hardly left Ziva's bedside since he'd been released from the prison that was the hospital. He spent his nights asleep in the armchair by his bed and his days talking to her. Gibbs, Abby, Tim and Ducky all circled through, but something in Tony prevented him from ever leaving Ziva's side. Maybe it was the fears that if he left, someone would sweep in and take her, prevent her from ever coming back to him. So Tony stayed. He talked to her. He hadn't had another heart-to-well, could it be considered a heart-to-heart when he was pouring his soul out to her and there was nothing he could do to get her to listen? Tony hadn't said the words "I love you" again since that night, but when he was alone with her, he often took her hand in his and just watched her. Tony was not a religious man, but as the days ticked by, he found himself praying that she would wake up, praying that she wouldn't die on him. It had been a week since the crash. Ziva still wasn't out of a coma. With each day, Tony's fierce desire to keep her safe intensified. He found himself catnapping rather than sleeping in order to keep a watch on her, as if he had convinced himself if he stayed awake, she'd somehow catch on and wake up, too. He was torn between panicking and rejoicing whenever a monitor beeped faster, because they were a sign of life. Sometimes, the only thing that reminded Tony that Ziva was alive was the consistent rise and fall of her chest. And that was the ache that kept him awake at night. That she had been reduced to a car crash victim. Ziva David was no longer a survivor, a ninja, she was a victim and that pained Tony to the core.

But then, one evening, something changed. Tony had closed his eyes for a second when beeping woke him up. He immediately shot bolt upright. Ziva's hand was twitching. And then her eyelids began to flutter. Then, they squeezed shut and opened. She was awake. And she immediately began to panic. She thrashed and began to cry out. Tony jumped out of the chair and bounded across the sterile room. He grabbed her shoulder, steadying her movements, just as he had done when she had been having nightmares in his apartment the night after her father's murder. Her eyes, wild and confused, met his concerned gaze and she immediately relaxed. Her voice was soft and hoarse, "Tony…" She tried to continue, but her thrashing fit had expended the little energy she had. He smiled, "Welcome back, Ziva." Tony pushed some hair off her forehead and she smiled a little bit. The doctors had figured out that she was awake by now and came barreling in, pushing Tony out of the way. They fussed over her for twenty or so minutes before leaving her alone to phone Gibbs. They poked and prodded, detached monitors and attached new ones, modified her oxygen, all sorts of fancy hospital stuff that Tony didn't get. Tony sat in the chair next to her bed again. She turned her head to face him, her body still flat against the bed and opened her mouth to speak. No words came, and she closed it again. Tony spoke, "You had a lot of people worried, Ms. David." He wiggled his eyebrows a little, completely destroying the half mock seriousness in his voice, "A lot of people, including me." This time, words came to Ziva, "They say people can hear things when they're in a coma," quoting Ducky. Tony's jaw dropped. Because Ducky had said that yesterday, "Did you hear everything?" She blinked, "Some things. I heard a lot of beeping, I heard Abby talking to me, I heard Tim comforting her, and I heard your concern for me." She was struggling to keep her eyes open now, and Tony spoke, "Yeah, well, it's kind of hard to be a Very Special Agent when their partner is in a coma, now, isn't it?" Then, Ziva did something entirely un-Ziva-like. She reached out a bit and took his hand in hers. Their fingers interlaced. The effort had exhausted her and Ziva soon fell asleep. Tony looked down at their interlocked hands and couldn't help but wonder, had she heard him when he told her that she completed him, and when he said that if she died, a piece of him would die, too, and that he loved her. Tony wasn't sure if he was scared or relieved that she could hear in her coma but he did know one thing. She'd come back to him.


End file.
